Looks like Black Friday is living up to retailers’ expectations this year. The day after Thanksgiving, traditionally when the stores move from the red into the black, has been chockers with shoppers. & their wallets seem to be open.
None of the reporters out at the malls seems to have asked shoppers how they plan on paying for their purchases, but in an era when folks think it’s okay to 1)buy houses they can’t afford with mortgage payments they can’t make; & 2)play the victim when they’re foreclosed on, I guess “plans to pay” don’t figure large in their thinking process.
During Thanksgiving day, I had the TV on for a while. I marveled at the commercials for all the enormous bargains to be had at all the various emporia, but gawped even more at how early the stores were going to open today. Kohl’s, opening at 0300, put Macy’s & Wal-Mart (0500) to shame.
But then it turns out that Toys-R-Us made them all look like pikers: they started their Black Friday sales at 2200 on Thanksgiving itself. Jeez.
I had occasion to go to Trader Joe’s today—I needed milk—around 1030. Well, I turned into the parking lot around 1020, but it took me 10 minutes to get my car to the actual store. I’d completely forgot that that shopping centre has both a Wal-Mart & a Kohl’s in it. Both drivers & pedestrians were not paying any attention to what they were doing, so I had to be extra alert as I navigated the sudden-halts-in-anticipation-that-someone-was-ready-to-leave-a-parking-spot, the wandering shopping carts & wayward children.
TJ’s itself wasn’t at all crowded, which was a massive relief. As I made my exit out the back way, however, the experience was as nightmarish as the journey in: there’s a Sears there.
Since I’m making most of my holiday gifts & buying a few online, I’m going to be able to avoid bricks-&-mortar shopping over the next few weeks. I have this thing about not spending money I don’t have, which is good for my economy but apparently not for the nation’s.
But I can’t think of any bargain good enough to get me to line up in front of a Wal-Mart at 0300 in order to be among the first couple of hundred spenders into the store.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Thanksgiving 2010, Pt. 4
This being the one official day in the year set aside for thankfulness, I’ve been thinking about what in my life I’m grateful for. I’ll share.
My BFF Leilah is doing well after her surgery and even though it’s very rough for her after her chemotherapy sessions, she’s still able to send around links to both funny and inspiring videos.
I don’t live in Seattle. They got snow earlier this week &, as usual, the whole area ground to a halt. Pathetic, self-absorbed losers.
No one has better friends than I do. I don’t have to be successful, well-dressed or even coherent when we get together; they value me as I am, and I love them all. And I’m hoping I’ll make more in the Bay Area.
I’ve discovered yoga. I don’t know why it is that I should feel so much better even after doing just three warrior poses, but I do. I’ve gone so far as to buy my own mat.
I don’t have a job, which is very worrying, but I’m able to donate time to making meals for the homeless. Besides—I love chopping up the veggies for the soup.
I’m in a position to choose what kind of bread to have for my sandwich & whether I’ll have mayo or mustard on it. Or neither.
My cat came out from under the bed after only a few weeks. Usually she stays there for about six months after a move.
A year ago on Thanksgiving I was in Bordeaux, tracing a journey I’d made 30 years before and reminding myself that I am capable of achievements. Over the past year I’ve drifted away from that remembrance & that hope; but it’s still something I’m grateful for.
I’ve pared away my possessions—including my books—so I can live in a much smaller space.
Safeway had a sale on domestic Chandon and Moët bubbly; I have six bottles to see me through the holidays.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
My BFF Leilah is doing well after her surgery and even though it’s very rough for her after her chemotherapy sessions, she’s still able to send around links to both funny and inspiring videos.
I don’t live in Seattle. They got snow earlier this week &, as usual, the whole area ground to a halt. Pathetic, self-absorbed losers.
No one has better friends than I do. I don’t have to be successful, well-dressed or even coherent when we get together; they value me as I am, and I love them all. And I’m hoping I’ll make more in the Bay Area.
I’ve discovered yoga. I don’t know why it is that I should feel so much better even after doing just three warrior poses, but I do. I’ve gone so far as to buy my own mat.
I don’t have a job, which is very worrying, but I’m able to donate time to making meals for the homeless. Besides—I love chopping up the veggies for the soup.
I’m in a position to choose what kind of bread to have for my sandwich & whether I’ll have mayo or mustard on it. Or neither.
My cat came out from under the bed after only a few weeks. Usually she stays there for about six months after a move.
A year ago on Thanksgiving I was in Bordeaux, tracing a journey I’d made 30 years before and reminding myself that I am capable of achievements. Over the past year I’ve drifted away from that remembrance & that hope; but it’s still something I’m grateful for.
I’ve pared away my possessions—including my books—so I can live in a much smaller space.
Safeway had a sale on domestic Chandon and Moët bubbly; I have six bottles to see me through the holidays.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Flying high without a clue
Okay, I’ve been kvetching about the bureaucratic side of air travel. And don’t even get me started on the airlines’ business model of offering a product at prices below their operating costs and thus making their customers their whipping boys. (Notice I said “product” not “service”.)
But evidently the flying public also don’t have the sense they were born with and were raised by a particularly unmannered pack of wolves. I mean, come on—smuggling weed into Jamaica? Seriously?
I have to say I have suspected this for a very long time; but if CNN says it’s so, it makes me happy that I have no plans to fly during any of the holidays.
But evidently the flying public also don’t have the sense they were born with and were raised by a particularly unmannered pack of wolves. I mean, come on—smuggling weed into Jamaica? Seriously?
I have to say I have suspected this for a very long time; but if CNN says it’s so, it makes me happy that I have no plans to fly during any of the holidays.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Thanksgiving 2010, Pt. 3
This holiday week is typically the most heavily-traveled in the US calendar; come tomorrow every TV station in the nation will have “news” teams at every airport even remotely close to the broadcast area, “reporting” on how many bazillion travelers are trying to get over the river to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving.
But there’s another travel story taking up electrons: the choice air travelers have in 70 airports of either going through the new Superman-X-Ray-Vision scanners or else submitting to a thorough pat down by TSA staff. (These scanners give a “nearly naked” view of anyone passing through them; presumably they would find your explosive underwear if you were of a mind to blow up your flight. The patters-down are the same TSA employees who’ve endeared themselves via their charm and professionalism to the flying public for the last eight years.) The scan/pat conundrum has been in place for a couple of weeks and has got a lot of bad press from travelers whose videoed experiences went viral over the Web.
(After the first couple of YouTube maelstroms the TSA started confiscating the mobile phones and video cameras of passengers who refused to be scanned. Good to know the agency can actually learn; bad to know that it’s the wrong lesson.)
Airline pilots have also decried the process and they’ve been given a dispensation from having to do either. The intensity of the scan multiplied by the number of times an air crew has to show up for work may be a health hazard; and TSA chief John Pistole has declared pilots “trusted partners who ensure the safety of millions of passengers flying every day.”
(Evidently, however, those members of the crew who don’t sit on the flight deck aren’t “trusted partners”; flight attendants will have to go through the scanners or submit to pat-downs, even though they generally go through the same security background check as pilots. Pistole spoke about how everything would fall apart if pilots couldn’t make their way expeditiously to their craft. But nothing happens until the stews show up, so I’m not getting the distinction that’s being made.)
So there’s been a call for a National Opt Out Day tomorrow—the busiest flying day of the year—by having travelers decline the scan and go through the pat-down, thus slowing down the security process. The boycotters are also asking passengers to demand the pat-downs in full public view, so that everyone will understand what the experience is.
Naturally, Pistole has responded by urging people not to do anything that will screw up a system that’s barely hanging together now. (Not the way he precisely described it.) This is all for our protection, etc.
Well, but is it? Seems to me like TSA has been three steps behind terrorist technology from the git-go. I do not feel like they’re actually anticipating what may be coming down the pike; just reacting to what has been discovered apparently by chance in the past. I’m reminded of the folk tale about Foolish Jack, who hasn’t got the sense he was born with. He drops a gold coin he was bringing to his mother into a river; when she berates him by saying he should have put it in his pocket, he says he will follow her instructions. So the next day he’s given a pitcher of milk to take home; he pours it in his pocket. His mother says he should have balanced the pitcher on his head and he says he will follow her instructions. The next day it’s butter, which he puts on his head and it melts. And so on and so forth.
(Hear a story teller’s version of the tale here.)
And I think I’m seeing butter dripping down all the heads of TSA, and that doesn’t make me feel secure at all.
What would make me feel better is if people would stop trying to user their persons to blow up things, including aircraft, nightclubs, pizza parlors and government buildings.
If they’re not going to do that, then governments should think about what actually might protect the non-explosive citizenry, come up with 1)a plan; 2)truly appropriate technologies; and 3)consistent policies to enforce and use 1) and 2).
“Coming up with” includes having the intestinal fortitude to fully fund the programs (to include investing in initial and continuing staff training) as well as to stand up to the various industries and special interests that don’t want to have to take extra steps (or expense—since their cost-benefit risk analysis has indicated that it’s cheaper to lose a 757 every once in a while than to run thorough security checks on all cargo shipments) to comply.
I’m also beginning to think that profiling should be a part of the plan. If non-TSA security agencies on US soil think it’s key to sniffing out terrorists before they commit acts of violence, why is it unreasonable to include it as part of programs to ensure the safety of air travel? I have an Irish name on US passport; I’ve never been asked to step out of line for a private chat when I passed through HM Immigration at Heathrow, but I know I fit a profile and I was therefore careful to be extra-special not-crabby or –flip when the agents asked about the purpose of my visit. I respect the fact that there are serious reasons why Irish names on US passports entering the country could raise someone’s anxiety level and I’m willing to let them do what they need to do to satisfy themselves that I have not, in fact, packed any undeclared gelignite in my carry-on.
Governments should also at least look like they’ve thought further ahead than the self-explosive contingent, so that the rest of us don’t always feel like the latest “program” is a reaction to the last attempt, but is actually an anticipation of the next one. (What’re the odds that now there’s going to be a ban on toner cartridges on aircraft?)
And if they’re going to scan, pat, wave crystals or consult Ouija boards at airports, I want the system to be the same at every damn facility, and I want everyone who flies to know that if something off the scan/pat/Ouija/crystal spectrum turns up you are gonna have some esplaining to do, Lucy, and you sure as hell aren’t going to make your flight.
It’s all this muddle that’s pissing me off.
In the meantime, it’ll be interesting for once to stay at home and watch those travel-chaos-at-the-airport stories on the local channels to see if any travelers really are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
But there’s another travel story taking up electrons: the choice air travelers have in 70 airports of either going through the new Superman-X-Ray-Vision scanners or else submitting to a thorough pat down by TSA staff. (These scanners give a “nearly naked” view of anyone passing through them; presumably they would find your explosive underwear if you were of a mind to blow up your flight. The patters-down are the same TSA employees who’ve endeared themselves via their charm and professionalism to the flying public for the last eight years.) The scan/pat conundrum has been in place for a couple of weeks and has got a lot of bad press from travelers whose videoed experiences went viral over the Web.
(After the first couple of YouTube maelstroms the TSA started confiscating the mobile phones and video cameras of passengers who refused to be scanned. Good to know the agency can actually learn; bad to know that it’s the wrong lesson.)
Airline pilots have also decried the process and they’ve been given a dispensation from having to do either. The intensity of the scan multiplied by the number of times an air crew has to show up for work may be a health hazard; and TSA chief John Pistole has declared pilots “trusted partners who ensure the safety of millions of passengers flying every day.”
(Evidently, however, those members of the crew who don’t sit on the flight deck aren’t “trusted partners”; flight attendants will have to go through the scanners or submit to pat-downs, even though they generally go through the same security background check as pilots. Pistole spoke about how everything would fall apart if pilots couldn’t make their way expeditiously to their craft. But nothing happens until the stews show up, so I’m not getting the distinction that’s being made.)
So there’s been a call for a National Opt Out Day tomorrow—the busiest flying day of the year—by having travelers decline the scan and go through the pat-down, thus slowing down the security process. The boycotters are also asking passengers to demand the pat-downs in full public view, so that everyone will understand what the experience is.
Naturally, Pistole has responded by urging people not to do anything that will screw up a system that’s barely hanging together now. (Not the way he precisely described it.) This is all for our protection, etc.
Well, but is it? Seems to me like TSA has been three steps behind terrorist technology from the git-go. I do not feel like they’re actually anticipating what may be coming down the pike; just reacting to what has been discovered apparently by chance in the past. I’m reminded of the folk tale about Foolish Jack, who hasn’t got the sense he was born with. He drops a gold coin he was bringing to his mother into a river; when she berates him by saying he should have put it in his pocket, he says he will follow her instructions. So the next day he’s given a pitcher of milk to take home; he pours it in his pocket. His mother says he should have balanced the pitcher on his head and he says he will follow her instructions. The next day it’s butter, which he puts on his head and it melts. And so on and so forth.
(Hear a story teller’s version of the tale here.)
And I think I’m seeing butter dripping down all the heads of TSA, and that doesn’t make me feel secure at all.
What would make me feel better is if people would stop trying to user their persons to blow up things, including aircraft, nightclubs, pizza parlors and government buildings.
If they’re not going to do that, then governments should think about what actually might protect the non-explosive citizenry, come up with 1)a plan; 2)truly appropriate technologies; and 3)consistent policies to enforce and use 1) and 2).
“Coming up with” includes having the intestinal fortitude to fully fund the programs (to include investing in initial and continuing staff training) as well as to stand up to the various industries and special interests that don’t want to have to take extra steps (or expense—since their cost-benefit risk analysis has indicated that it’s cheaper to lose a 757 every once in a while than to run thorough security checks on all cargo shipments) to comply.
I’m also beginning to think that profiling should be a part of the plan. If non-TSA security agencies on US soil think it’s key to sniffing out terrorists before they commit acts of violence, why is it unreasonable to include it as part of programs to ensure the safety of air travel? I have an Irish name on US passport; I’ve never been asked to step out of line for a private chat when I passed through HM Immigration at Heathrow, but I know I fit a profile and I was therefore careful to be extra-special not-crabby or –flip when the agents asked about the purpose of my visit. I respect the fact that there are serious reasons why Irish names on US passports entering the country could raise someone’s anxiety level and I’m willing to let them do what they need to do to satisfy themselves that I have not, in fact, packed any undeclared gelignite in my carry-on.
Governments should also at least look like they’ve thought further ahead than the self-explosive contingent, so that the rest of us don’t always feel like the latest “program” is a reaction to the last attempt, but is actually an anticipation of the next one. (What’re the odds that now there’s going to be a ban on toner cartridges on aircraft?)
And if they’re going to scan, pat, wave crystals or consult Ouija boards at airports, I want the system to be the same at every damn facility, and I want everyone who flies to know that if something off the scan/pat/Ouija/crystal spectrum turns up you are gonna have some esplaining to do, Lucy, and you sure as hell aren’t going to make your flight.
It’s all this muddle that’s pissing me off.
In the meantime, it’ll be interesting for once to stay at home and watch those travel-chaos-at-the-airport stories on the local channels to see if any travelers really are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Thanksgiving 2010, Pt. 2
I had a 2.5 hour interview today (in San Francisco so with commute the total project time was close to seven hours), & I’m just thankful it’s over.
It’s for a job I’m eminently capable of doing well (product marketing for research services) in an industry I’m familiar with (& interested in), so I should have done well. But each of them (two VPs & a senior director of various marketing disciplines) asked me a question (different ones) that I didn’t know the answer to. & I felt like a dope.
Additionally, one asked for the three words I’d use to describe myself, & naturally I went blank. Then he asked for the three words a conclave of friends & colleagues would come up with to describe me & I also tanked. (I’ll have to add snappy thoughts on those topics to my collection of “tell me about a time you failed miserably & what you learned from it/would do differently” answers. Which was asked today.)
I guess I should be thankful that he didn’t ask what kind of tree I would choose to be. Because today it would be one in a forest fire assured of a swift death.
It’s for a job I’m eminently capable of doing well (product marketing for research services) in an industry I’m familiar with (& interested in), so I should have done well. But each of them (two VPs & a senior director of various marketing disciplines) asked me a question (different ones) that I didn’t know the answer to. & I felt like a dope.
Additionally, one asked for the three words I’d use to describe myself, & naturally I went blank. Then he asked for the three words a conclave of friends & colleagues would come up with to describe me & I also tanked. (I’ll have to add snappy thoughts on those topics to my collection of “tell me about a time you failed miserably & what you learned from it/would do differently” answers. Which was asked today.)
I guess I should be thankful that he didn’t ask what kind of tree I would choose to be. Because today it would be one in a forest fire assured of a swift death.
Thanksgiving 2010
Since moving to the Bay Area I’ve done a bit of volunteering, helping a church group make & serve lunches to a couple of homeless shelters in San José. We serve at each of the two one Saturday per month.
For the past two Saturdays the menu has been soup, sandwiches, fruit & dessert. We actually make vegetable soup from scratch—it’s not like we’re opening a couple of industrial-strength sized cans of Campbell’s soup & nuking it; there are aromatics, potatoes, greens, tomatoes & herbs. Last week I got to taste it & it was really pretty good.
What upset me were the sandwiches: white bread, a slice of processed turkey, a slice of American cheese, mayonnaise & mustard. I’m leaving aside the issue of whether there’s any nutrient value in white bread—I’m sure it’s injected with all kinds of stuff to make up for the over-processed flour. & it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than the $2.99 you pay for a small loaf of Trader Joe’s multi-grain bread, so I get it. We made 100 sandwiches each Saturday.
& I won’t cavil at the American cheese, although I personally think you shouldn’t be able to call it “cheese” if Stilton, Brie, Edam & Asiago are also “cheeses”. Protein is protein.
What brought it all home to me was that as my co-volunteers were laying out the assembly line was that the homeless people didn’t get to choose to opt out of either the mayo or the mustard. Every sandwich had it. & once that stuff is on the bread, it’s pretty much impossible to scrape it off.
Then I thought back to last month, when the menu was pasta (with chicken—really pretty good), salad (with dressing applied en masse) & garlic bread. Now me—I happen to like garlic bread; perhaps too much. But if you wanted a piece of bread that wasn’t already thoroughly infused with the stuff, you were out of luck. (Or if you didn’t happen to much care for the particular dressing.)
Your choices were take what was offered or go hungry.
Then, last Sunday, I was at coffee hour at the church, which is across from a downtown San José park that’s a center for the homeless. This park is surrounded by a couple of churches, offices & some up- & down-market housing, but I’m thinking that it’s not used by much of anyone but the drug addicts & homeless folk. (The church I attend keeps its doors locked most of the time, because there had been a lot of drug deals going down in it when they were open.) I noticed a lot of people lined up & asked one of the long-time parishioners if there was a meal being served.
He told me it’s a “drive-by” feeding: it’s actually illegal to distribute food in that park, so people come by, park & hand out sandwiches & things until the cops come by & roust them.
(I get it that there’s an issue of balance as to whether the park belongs to the bag people or the families who want to take their kids to the swings without them picking up drug paraphernalia in the sandbox. I myself feel uncomfortable walking past the place. But is it better to let them root through garbage bins rather than receive food that hasn't already been at least partially consumed?)
I think of the wealth in this area—Google has just announced plans to build yet another Googleplex that will have offices, retail shops & housing, so you never have to leave work—& all the upscale restaurants patronized by the technorati; & then I think of the children in the shelters & the park people lining up in an orderly fashion to get food before the police show up. Even if the food is sandwiches with both mayo & mustard.
There’s something wrong here.
For the past two Saturdays the menu has been soup, sandwiches, fruit & dessert. We actually make vegetable soup from scratch—it’s not like we’re opening a couple of industrial-strength sized cans of Campbell’s soup & nuking it; there are aromatics, potatoes, greens, tomatoes & herbs. Last week I got to taste it & it was really pretty good.
What upset me were the sandwiches: white bread, a slice of processed turkey, a slice of American cheese, mayonnaise & mustard. I’m leaving aside the issue of whether there’s any nutrient value in white bread—I’m sure it’s injected with all kinds of stuff to make up for the over-processed flour. & it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than the $2.99 you pay for a small loaf of Trader Joe’s multi-grain bread, so I get it. We made 100 sandwiches each Saturday.
& I won’t cavil at the American cheese, although I personally think you shouldn’t be able to call it “cheese” if Stilton, Brie, Edam & Asiago are also “cheeses”. Protein is protein.
What brought it all home to me was that as my co-volunteers were laying out the assembly line was that the homeless people didn’t get to choose to opt out of either the mayo or the mustard. Every sandwich had it. & once that stuff is on the bread, it’s pretty much impossible to scrape it off.
Then I thought back to last month, when the menu was pasta (with chicken—really pretty good), salad (with dressing applied en masse) & garlic bread. Now me—I happen to like garlic bread; perhaps too much. But if you wanted a piece of bread that wasn’t already thoroughly infused with the stuff, you were out of luck. (Or if you didn’t happen to much care for the particular dressing.)
Your choices were take what was offered or go hungry.
Then, last Sunday, I was at coffee hour at the church, which is across from a downtown San José park that’s a center for the homeless. This park is surrounded by a couple of churches, offices & some up- & down-market housing, but I’m thinking that it’s not used by much of anyone but the drug addicts & homeless folk. (The church I attend keeps its doors locked most of the time, because there had been a lot of drug deals going down in it when they were open.) I noticed a lot of people lined up & asked one of the long-time parishioners if there was a meal being served.
He told me it’s a “drive-by” feeding: it’s actually illegal to distribute food in that park, so people come by, park & hand out sandwiches & things until the cops come by & roust them.
(I get it that there’s an issue of balance as to whether the park belongs to the bag people or the families who want to take their kids to the swings without them picking up drug paraphernalia in the sandbox. I myself feel uncomfortable walking past the place. But is it better to let them root through garbage bins rather than receive food that hasn't already been at least partially consumed?)
I think of the wealth in this area—Google has just announced plans to build yet another Googleplex that will have offices, retail shops & housing, so you never have to leave work—& all the upscale restaurants patronized by the technorati; & then I think of the children in the shelters & the park people lining up in an orderly fashion to get food before the police show up. Even if the food is sandwiches with both mayo & mustard.
There’s something wrong here.
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